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I lift my hands to his shoulders and open to him.
He makes a frustrated noise, his breathing sharp.
He takes his mouth from mine and glances at the tree with the chattering blackbirds. “It’s ... six thirty. Sue’ll be expecting us.”
I give him a bemused smile, dizzy and glowy-warm. “Did you just look at that tree to tell the time?”
“Sure.” He looks back at me. “It’s a clock tree.”
I snort, and then, when he lifts an eyebrow, I grab his grass-stained shirt and pull him against me. I kiss his jaw, tasting the salt and the leaves and the sea. “You can’t tell time from a tree. Trust me, I know a little bit about time. A flower clock, yes. A tree clock, no.”
Aaron’s breath quickens as I trace my mouth over his jaw. He turns his face to mine and catches my mouth. “You know as well as I do,” he says, “that’s a clock tree. The world’s best teller of time. The flowers open at sunrise and then they close with the setting sun. You can tell the time by how shut tight they are.”
I stare into his open, warm gaze. “Really?”
A clock tree.
“Yes. It’s why you never wear a watch. You always said you don’t need one.”
I wouldneversay something like that.
I think about Aaron’s wristwatch, a Tag diver’s watch, the one he was wearing last night. I’m surprised it’s not an Abry. You’d think my subconscious would know better, but still.
“You wear a watch.”
He nods. “I like watches. I have a few.”
Helikeswatches. He has afew.
I grin at him—a full, face-splitting smile.
At my smile a bright red flush spreads across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He runs a hand through his hair. “I’ll get cleaned up.”
And before he can take my mouth and carry me back into the cottage and drop me into our bed—which I know he wants to do—he ducks into the cottage.
I fan myself and wonder if I’ll be able to make it through dinner without kissing him.
Or waking up.
32
Sue’s,the only restaurant on island, is not called EAT. It’s actually called Sue’s Home-Cooked Delicacies Made-to-Order for You to Eat. It’s a mouthful, which I think is why Sue decided to paint the word “EAT” on the chipboard sign tacked above the front door and leave it at that.
I clasp the handwritten menu and the grease-stained paper crinkles in my hand. There are three options for the main: fried catch of the day, baked catch of the day, and grilled catch of the day. Two appetizers: mango salad or crab mango salad. And three desserts: banana cake, coconut rum cake, or chocolate cake. However, the chocolate cake is scratched out with pencil.
I remember from the anniversary party that we had the last chocolate cake on the island.
Or the chickens had the last chocolate cake on the island.
I smile across the little wooden café table at Aaron. We’re outside, in the back garden behind Sue’s. Her generator isn’t running. Instead of lights, we’re surrounded by the yellow flames of a dozen pillar candles. They’re set in buckets of sand, and the soft glow bounces off the garden, highlighting the white pom-pom flowers blooming in the bushes. They let off a soft jasmine scent, mixing with the crickets that started singing at the first hint of dusk.
Aaron hasn’t looked at the menu. Maybe he knows something I don’t. Instead he’s been watching the leaves flip and turn in the cooling breeze and the ribbons of sunlight that prismed through the garden as the sun dipped to the ocean.
He was quiet on the walk over, deep in thought. He was even quiet when Sue, a gregarious woman in her fifties with gray hair and a warm, motherly air, pulled him in for a quick peck on the cheek and thanked him profusely for fixing her fryer.
He’s quiet. Not looking at me.
But just like Amy, I can see the thoughts swirling through him, his mind moving a million miles a minute. And even though he hasn’t looked at me except to give quick smiles, I can feel his attention.
